


you sit beside her & hope never to be asked to leave

by unicyclehippo



Series: Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:40:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21713146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicyclehippo/pseuds/unicyclehippo
Summary: Beauregard has said some things out loud. About Jester. Things change. That's how the world works; things always change.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Series: Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824289
Comments: 9
Kudos: 268





	1. Chapter 1

It’s different once you say something out loud. It becomes real, but infuriatingly intangible at the same time. Writing shit down is always more useful in the long run. Not that Beau would ever write this down, not in a hundred years, but like—speaking from a purely intellectual stand point as a super intellectual person, saying shit out loud has never helped anyone ever and in fact, it majorly sucks.

Reason the first: Nott is being weird despite her promise.

‘So we’re agreed? We crash at Beau’s place.’

‘Sounds like the sort of thing you should, I dunno, ask me about,’ Beau points out. ‘Not that I’m gonna say no or whatever but it is my cool new place and I earned it or whatever. And also I get to make up the rules for it like no shoes on the bed.’

‘Oh.’ Jester looks crestfallen all of a sudden and it’s _Nott_ of all people who Beau looks to with a sudden look of alarm and confusion and _help me!_ ‘I already bounced on the bed, Beau.’

‘Oh. No, I mean, that’s fine, uh, obviously.’

‘Jester is the exception to the rule,’ Nott announces, and other than a sudden spike of cold in Beau’s gut—is Nott hinting at The Thing That Must Not Be Discussed?—everyone just kind of nods and agrees and Jester beams.

‘Beau,’ Fjord says, a little grandiose, not quite mocking but mocking adjacent, like he knows full well that Beau is never gonna turn them away or say no, the asshole, ‘may we please crash in your room?’

She pretends to think about it for a long second and then cracks, grinning. ‘Yeah, alright.’

‘There’s only one bed,’ Caleb says. ‘Some of us could share but perhaps we should get some, ah, cushions. Stone is less comfortable than grass, after all. Beauregard can decide who gets the bed.’

‘Yes, Beauregard, who gets the bed?’ Nott again. She looks about half a second away from staring meaningfully at Jester, so Beau mutters something about _my bed_ and _we’ll see_ and _definitely not you so die mad about it you piece of shit halfling_.

Jester laughs, seeing Nott scream and jump onto Beau’s leg, and she says over the furor, ‘It’s me, Nott, I get the bed.’

‘Eh?’ Nott squeaks, stopping just shy of burying her teeth into the fleshy muscle above Beau’s knee.

‘I mean, we’ve shared before. It’s fine, isn’t it?’ She looks unsure of it suddenly. Might have something to do with the way Nott and Beau haven’t moved or blinked and stand locked together like some kind of statue depicting a battle. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Yes!’ Beau blurts. Loudly. ‘It’s fine! Eat shit, Nott!’

‘I can’t even curl up at the end of the bed?’ Nott shrieks. ‘What kind of a monster are you? Kicking an old lady onto the floor? I could have arthritis!’

‘There’s plenty of space - '

‘Holy shit, Nott, okay fine whatever -‘

‘Is this really the most necessary conversation to have right this second?’

‘No no, don’t interrupt, it’s good to air grievances,’ Caduceus murmurs to Fjord, who just shakes his head.

‘Do you have arthritis?’

‘I could! You don’t know me!’

‘I agree with Fjord,’ Caleb says from the outskirts, out of the range of the minor brawl all three women have begun. Every few seconds, they seem to be in new and varied positions as they fight and talk and - bond? Nott trying to hamstring Beau. Beau pinning Nott to the floor. Jester peeling Nott away from Beau’s throat. All three of them somehow tangled up. Nott standing on Jester and Beau’s interlocked arms to scream at Beau, a long finger pointed accusingly down into her face.

‘I think the question is,’ he continues, largely unbothered by the scene, ‘what do we do about this Encroaching Demise?’

‘Pretty sure that’s not their name,’ Fjord disagrees but he’s grinning.

The trio rejoin them—better than ever, apparently, because they’re all grinning ear to ear despite a few vivid scratches—and Jester looks thoughtful before a delighted smile curls into the corners of her lips, dimples popping. ‘The Eventual Completion.’

Beau snorts. ‘Unavoidable Completion.’

‘Beau!’ Jester scolds.

‘Really? _That’s_ a no go? Coming from _you_?’

Jester holds the scolding look for a second longer before she starts to laugh properly. And Nott does it—gives that look, passing from Beau to Jester and back again. And lingers.

//

She watches them that night. Beau nearly shits herself when she gets up out of bed to go to the washroom and she sees Nott at the end of the bed, Nott’s eyes like two gleaming dancing lights—or like Frumpkin’s eyes, two gleaming points of reflected light in the dark.

‘Nott—holy _shit_ , dude, what,’

‘I’m on second watch,’ the older woman reminds Beau.

‘And you’re watching _me_?’

‘You moved,’ Nott defends. The round eyes narrow to suspicious slits. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Bathroom.’

‘Alone? Absolutely not.’

‘I’m a big girl, I can take a leak—‘

‘That freak came up through the stone floor, no one goes anywhere alone.’

Beau shuffles a little in place. The stone is cold on her bare feet and finally she jerks her head in a nod. Nott wakes Fjord for third watch, it was getting close to it anyway, and tells him where they’re headed. As they’re stepping out, she smells the first stirrings of tea as Fjord begins to brew a cup. They go to the washroom in silence and return in silence. Nott stops in front of the door.

‘Are you going to sleep tonight?’ she asks.

‘What? Yes?’

‘Because you weren’t. Before.’

Beau shrugs. ‘Hard to get to sleep after taking first watch, that’s all.’

‘You realise you told me like twenty four hours ago that you lie a lot, right? I know now, Beau, I’m on the level, I can see _right_ through you. You think you’re so sneaky but I’m like - I’m like some kind of investigator, trained to see through it!’

Beau blinks. ‘You mean a detective?’

‘Ah fuck! Shut up!’

‘You call yourself that literally all the time.’

‘Shut up!’

She snorts. Opens the door for the both of them. Nott scuttles ahead and steals Beau’s spot, curls up nice and small into Jester’s side where it is warm and the blankets settle like a nest around her. It is with a small amount of relief, and a larger dose of annoyance, that Beau—not arguing for once—takes Nott’s spot at the end of the bed.

She falls to sleep with ease.


	2. Chapter 2

Reason the second: she can’t stop thinking about it.

Nott is one reminder—every time Beau looks at her, the words all come rushing back and this pit opens up in her gut like all of her is gonna topple into it because here’s the thing, Nott is a mess. Nott is a tangle of impulses and obsessions bundled up in a goblin sack. Nott pokes fun at Fjord all day long but when it comes to her own decisions, Beau is pretty sure they usually amount to either “ _do it before I chicken out_ ” or “ _I want it_ ” or “ _this will be funny_ ”. Some things she does better with; Beau doesn’t think she’ll ever forget sitting by the river and learning that this woman had allowed her friends—fuck, work colleagues, basically, at that point—to drown her day after day after she had _died_ like that. Some secrets, Beau has to admit, Nott is good at keeping. She’s worried, probably, because if this isn’t a secret worth Nott feels it's worth keeping...what’s to stop her from telling? On purpose, to cheer Jester up or distract her? By accident while she’s digging for intel on a mission Beau a _hundred_ per cent didn’t send her on?

Beau has a stomach ache and it’s Nott’s fault. It’s Beau’s fault. It’s mostly Nott’s fault and a little bit Beau’s fault.

It’s all Beau’s fault, and this is the _real_ second reason saying it out loud was a bad no good terrible idea: now that she’s said it, told Nott, said the words out loud...it’s like everything has shifted ever so slightly. Like the echo of those words are humming still in the air; she keeps hearing it, thinking about it. And not in the rushed kind of way she’d been doing but more and more often until some fraction of the idea—of Jester, of her and Jester—hits her every second of every day like the shimmering fragments of diamond gleaming from Jester’s shoulders.

It’s unavoidable. It’s _agonising_. It sits unwieldy on Beau and she feels, for the first time in a long time, terribly clumsy. She’s second guessing herself. She’s holding back and then blurting things out. She’s distracted. She wakes up next to Jester and then spends the next hour doing her push ups and other exercises. Maybe she adds more sit ups—gotta keep that ab window the great view that it is.

//

‘You two have become very close,’ Caleb comments about the two of them like the uber intelligent and stunningly stupid man he is. He stands bleary-eyed and scruffy-chinned over them as Beau puts together some bacon for Nott—doesn’t even try to poison it, though she might give Nott the slightly charred ones—and Nott pours over one of Beau’s precious notebooks and corrects some of the alchemical and mechanical assumptions Beau had made about Blondie’s devices.

‘We’ve been confiding,’ Nott tells him.

‘Ah. About what?’

Nott casually pulls her crossbow—from where, Beau can’t be certain—and levels it at him. ‘Never ask that again,’ Nott warns, oddly cheerily.

Caleb blinks. ‘Ah. Ja, okay. She is a good bodyguard, no?’ he says to Beau, who eyes the surprisingly protective Nott and feels—disgustingly—a little bit protected, a little bit safer.

‘Put some clothes on,’ is all Beau says.

‘I have clothes on. These are called nightclothes, Beauregard, they are worn at night when one goes to sleep.’

‘And the chain is what? Night chainmail?’

‘That is armour.’

‘Obviously,’ Nott says to Beau.

‘Just sleep naked like I do and be really good at not getting shot.’

Caleb’s nose crinkles at the idea and he—finally!—wanders away. Nott turns her crossbow on Beau and with a _twang_! of the wire, shoots. Beau snatches the bolt out of the air and, with a glare, pushes slice after slice of sizzling hot bacon onto it.


	3. Chapter 3

The thing is, the thing _is_ , even her thinking about it now is actually thinking around it, because Beau is thinking about how Nott is watching her now and how their whole thing has changed and about how the things she’s doing is giving her away and she’s trying very hard not to think about the thing itself, which is, well. Jester.

‘Beau?’

‘Hng.’

‘ _Beau_.’

‘Hn-what?’

‘Oh my gosh, Beau, are you awake too? What a coincidence,’ Jester coos, and when Beau flips her off and turns over to go back to sleep—because crush or not, sleep is a necessary and sacred thing—Jester’s grin grows and she hurries to Beau’s bed, crashes in beside her. She can’t know, she _can’t_ know how Beau feels because if she did it would be too much to feel the way Jester snuggles close and drops her chin down—sharp, too hard—between Beau’s shoulder blades. Onto her spine. And stays. _I’m here_ , the act seems to say. _Feel me? I’m here._

Beau’s arms close right around the pillow she holds to her and draws in a shallow breath.

‘Beau,’ she says again, without lifting her head. Her chin moves weirdly against Beau’s back. ’Can I talk to you about something?’

Beau grunts. There’s a too long pause and Beau buries her head in her pillow; ignores the heat of a hand against her hip, the weight of Jester half on, half off her. The tickle of hair against her bare shoulders. Jester’s free hand coming up to trace over the swirls and curls of the tattooed filagree. It’s so much, especially when she’s coming out of a warm comfortable sleep and her mind is hazed with that dreamlike drowse and those points where Jester is touching are the only things in the whole world that seem real. But she knows that pause—Jester is gonna pull back, pull away, pretend it’s not a big deal or whatever and just because Beau’s entire world right now exists only in the form of _hand_ and _girl_ and _oh gods neck,_ that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t listen to her friend.

_Focus, Beauregard. C’mon you useless dumbass, you can do this._

Beau rolls out her shoulders, feels and hears the crackle of tension or whatever it is, too stiff tendons; whether she had wanted it or not—and she’s not sure about it, honestly—the movement causes Jester to take her fingers away.

‘Yeah, uh huh, sorry, I’m awake,’ she says with a little waking-up snort to really sell it. ‘Question? Yeah, okay, you can ask me something. Anything. What do you want to ask? Huh?’

Jester laughs. Beau _feels_ her laugh, feels her belly move against the back of her hip where Jester is laying partly on Beau, mostly on the bed. It’s. Its—yeah. Dizzying.

Jester goes quiet again, and Beau wants to turn over to see—what kind of quiet? Is Jester sad? Thoughtful? But Jester squeezes her arm and effortlessly keeps her pinned so she’s facing away, and finally she speaks.

‘He’s my dad.’

Beau waits. When Jester doesn’t say anything more, she hazards a gentle, ‘That wasn’t a question, Jes.’

‘How come I didn’t see it? Nott said that I would. She said I’d _know_.’

‘Nott doesn’t know shit,’ Beau says out of hand and she grins when she feels a sharp little pinch against the soft of her bicep. ‘Ow!’

‘Be nice.’

Beau grumbles something or other. Then, ‘She’s smart. Really smart. But you gotta admit she’s not great with people.’

‘And you are?’

‘I know what makes 'em tick,’ Beau admits, and she wriggles with purpose this time, truly intent on turning so she can see Jester’s face. She’s not sad—well, not crying, thank the gods. She does look a little put out and Beau hands her the pillow so Jester can tuck it under herself. Beau sits up and her heart stops for a second as Jester looks at her appraisingly and then turns over as well, dropping her head on Beau’s thigh.

Beau hides shaking hands by burying them in Jester’s hair—a mistake, no doubt, because the movement, sifting through her soft locks, fills the room with the smell of lavender—and braiding little twists of her dark hair.

‘I didn’t see it either. The look Nott said you’d see. Fuck, maybe she wa right—maybe he did look at you like that and both of us just...missed it.’

‘You were looking?’ Jester asks, in a very small voice. Beau nods. ‘Thanks, Beau.’

She snorts. ‘Don’t thank me, I didn’t do shit. I have zero experience with - with dads. I mean, I tried because if anyone deserves to have a good, a good relationship it’s _you_ ,’

‘I heard you,’ Jester interrupts. Beau’s stomach drops—with Nott? Luckily, she continues before Beau can embarrass herself, say something she’d regret. ‘I didn’t go in as my mama.’

Ah. That.

‘I noticed,’ Beau nods, drags her fingers through the braids she had made, parting them and scratching blunt nails gently against Jester’s scalp. ‘You’re good at it. Honest. Like, I wasn’t saying you can’t do it because you’re shit, I just thought maybe not the best idea to do straight up, y’know? You’re really good at pretending to be your mum though—voice and all.’

‘Oh you liked that?’ Jester giggles. Drops her voice a few notes into that warm, smooth timbre. ‘ _Beauregard_ ,’ she says, and damn if her voice doesn’t curl invitingly around the name. Beau has never liked her full name but she could get behind it if it sounded like that full time. ‘How nice to see you here in my bed chambers.’

Heat burns across Beau’s cheeks but she laughs, drops one hand to shove at Jester’s shoulder.

‘ _Anyway_. Was that your question? Why you - you didn’t see the _look_ he should supposedly have given you?’

‘I guess. Sorry to wake you just for that.’ Jester laughs a hiccuppy laugh that entirely betrays exactly how not okay about this whole thing she is—and likely everything else that is going on—and Beau moves her hands so she can drag her thumbs over Jester’s forehead and down to her temples and away, a neat little massage trick she'd picked up somewhere.

‘Don’t apologise for anything. Not waking me up, not talking about shit, nothing. Anything you want to talk about is important to me too. I—I’m here for you, Jes.’

The room is dark and Beau isn’t wearing her goggles. There’s hardly any moonlight tonight, the light from the waning crescent watery and thin, and Beau can’t see anything of Jester at all except for the faintest outline of her form and the occasional shimmer like glitter across her shoulders. But she can feel Jester’s face in her hands and feel the smile push up into her cheeks, feel the way the other girl turns her head against Beau’s knee and kisses it.

‘Thank you, Beau.’


	4. Chapter 4

Obann snuck off with the red-haired bitch; the Nein got Yasha and the Laughing Hand. That is, they killed the Hand and kept Yasha. With no dispelling magic left, they had to use the manacles to put her to sleep—something Fjord and Jester were adamant either they had to do it themselves or couldn’t be in the room when it was done.

In the end, Fjord did it—forced his face stern to try and cover up the way his hands shook hard handling those manacles—and Jester left.

Beau finds her sitting outside the Cobalt Soul.

The clouded sky is broken through spears of light—has been ever since the fight under the Chantry. Jester has found her way to one of the rays and sits within it; she would look entirely peaceful, face turned up toward the light, if not for the way her tail curls and uncurls in anxious flexes by her ankle.

‘Hey.’

Jester’s eyes—entirely dark, even the sclera, and Beau wonders when exactly that had become totally normal for her, when it had been those eyes she sought out in everyone's faces—open slowly and she rolls her head toward Beau, not lifting it from where it rests back against the stone wall.

‘Hey.’

‘Mind if I sit?’

Jester shakes her head.

Beau sits on the ground beside her, carefully negotiating the tugging pain from a wicked slice to her leg. And they just…sit. She thinks she knows what Jester needs—takes a moment to weigh it, make absolutely certain it’s about what Jester needs and not what _she_ wants—and is relieved to find that when she lifts her arm, Jester scoots closer and sets her head down on Beau’s shoulder, sighs.

‘You did good down there,’ Beau tells her, scratches her nails up through Jester’s hair. She doesn’t comment on the scrap of something that falls out, just flicks it away. ‘We couldn’t—we needed you, Jes, and you did - amazing.’

Jester lifts her head; there’s the tiniest crinkle between her brows like she’s confused by something. She shakes her head, laughs a bitter little laugh. ‘I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t stop them breaking the pin, I couldn’t close the portal, I couldn’t -‘ Beau moves her hand so it covers Jester’s mouth and grins; it is not despair or uncertainty or confusion that consumes Jester then—just pure outrage. She shoves Beau’s hand away, glares. ‘You are _so lucky_ I’m out of spells for today or I would rebuke you so hard, you have no idea. You’d be an icicle, Beau, you would be waddling around totally encased in ice, we would have to chip you out.’

‘Or get Caleb to thaw me.’

‘Or put you in the hot tub. You could float in it and melt all the ice away,’ Jester giggles. She snuggles into Beau’s side again, seemingly having forgotten the conversation they were in. Beau doesn't pull her attention back to it; she doesn't want to see Jester confused, or despairing. It hurts too much.

After a minute, Jester reaches into her coat for the notebook she keeps there and, in plain view of Beau, sketches a goofy ice-cube Beau looking shocked and then embarrassed as she began to melt into a puddle.

‘Cute,’ Beau drawls. 'Look, I wet myself,' she says, making Jester laugh.

Jester continues to draw and sketch and at some point, she begins to sketch for real what had happened down there. Obann with wings flared. The glyph on Yasha’s neck. That awful pit, shadows twisting in and over themselves in horrible grasping arms. Beau herself, hair a mess, dripping with blood and sweat, hands glowing with a holy light. And for a moment, Beau swears she feels impossibly soft fabric drift across her fingers, her cheek; when she twists to see who it is behind them, she knocks her head hard on the stone wall.

Jester laughs. ‘Did you see him?’

‘Ow. No.’

The reluctant healer reaches up, traces her fingers over the throbbing lump on Beau’s forehead; it stings, she'd probably scraped off a layer of skin, and then it doesn’t.

Whatever final flicker of power Jester has for today, she gives it to Beau.

Eyes fixed on the injury, tongue caught between her lips, Jester works her magic—literally—and it sparks green and pink between her fingers, smelling of cinnamon and sugar like always, and the pain fades.

‘He didn’t mean for you to get hurt—he probably just thought it’d be funny.’

‘Like how he taught you how to look like your mama and you got banished from Nicodranas?’ Jester recoils from Beau and the comment, her lips pressing thin and pale blue. Dark eyes flash with a warning that Beau heeds—this time. She backs down with a, ‘Sorry. Just…feeling a bit protective, I guess.’

‘Well don’t. I don’t need you to protect me.’

‘No, of course not,’

‘I’ve been looking after myself just fine!’

‘Yeah, I know! You’re great and strong and amazing and you don’t need anyone!’

Jester’s scowl fades the tiniest bit and she leans back into the wall, and Beau’s side. They sit in silence, feeling and watching the rays of sunlight shift ever so slightly. Eventually, Jester says, ‘Sometimes I need help. I know I always look super strong and buff and happy and stuff? But y’know, sometimes I don’t...know what I’m doing so much.' Jester leans heavier into her side. Reaches for Beau's hand. 'Thanks for looking out for me, Beau. Even if I don’t think the Traveller needs to be, um, interrogated—‘ Jester pauses, eyes wide. She grips hard at Beau’s hand and laughs. ‘That would be so much fun though! Maybe, when he lets you see him one day, maybe we can interrogate him!’

‘You want me to punch a god with my ki?’ Jester nods eagerly. Beau shrugs. ‘Shit. I mean, yeah, I guess I’m game.’

‘Oh my gosh it would be _so_ much fun, I’m going to ask him about it.’ She looks on the verge of leaping to her feet to do exactly that—and stops. Settles in place. ‘Later. I’m—‘ She laughs quietly, an airy little laugh that is so perfect, designed to hide any little imperfection in what she is about to say, about to admit. ‘I’m a little tired.’

Beau returns the tight grip Jester has on her hand, squeezes. ‘Me too, Jes. But later, tell him I’ll beat the shit out of him if that’s what he wants.’

**Author's Note:**

> hi im unicyclehippo on tumblr as well, feel free to swing on by & say hi or send me a prompt x


End file.
